2012 Volkswagen Golf Tdi on 2040-cars

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Toyota reclaims global sales crown, GM and VW not far behind

TheDetroitBureau.com reports Toyota has retaken the global sales crown. The Japanese automaker turned out 9.75 million vehicles last year, putting it just ahead of General Motors, with 9.29 million vehicles. Volkswagen, meanwhile, filled out the podium by building 9.1 million units in 2012.
Still, Toyota numbers fell just below projections the automaker made earlier in the year, due largely to a fierce territorial dispute between Japan and China that has seen mainland buyers shun Japanese goods. But the news marks a substantial comeback for Toyota. The company fell to third place in the global production race in 2011 after tragic earthquake and tsunami caused several plant closures.
In Japan, Toyota enjoyed a sales increase of 35 percent over the previous year, while the company's worldwide sales jumped by 23 percent thanks in part to new additions to the Prius line. The automaker is forecasting yet another increase for 2013, with the company projecting to reach 9.91 million units this year. Neither Volkswagen nor GM have released their own projections just yet.

The not-Subaru crossover wagon | 2017 Volkswagen Alltrack First Drive

Funnily enough, in light of dieselgate, Volkswagen is one of the few brands (along with Volvo and Subaru) to preserve the notion that you don't need a fuel-sucking SUV to meet your life-carrying needs. And, yes, VW's history of addressing off-road desires with all-wheel-drive dates to the mid-1980s with the Quantum Syncro (a.k.a. Passat) and Golf Country – the latter, sadly, never came stateside. The latest offering toward this effort is the 2017 Volkswagen Alltrack. What's an Alltrack? It's a slightly lifted, cladded, and butched-out version of the Golf Sportwagen (yes, formerly known as a Jetta). Not to steal Alltrack's thunder, but starting in 2017 you can also get the standard Sportwagen with 4Motion AWD, which is basically the same running gear for less money. The Alltrack starts at $26,950; the 4Motion Sportwagen starts at $24,930, both with the dual-clutch automatic available at launch. Any discussion of tall wagons brings Subaru immediately to mind, both with the Outback and the Impreza-based Crosstrek. The Volkswagen Alltrack sits between the two in size at 180.2 inches long – 5 more than the Crosstrek and 9.4 inches shorter than the Outback. The 2017 Subaru Outback starts at $25,645, and VW's comparisons focus on the Outback, which is understandable given the similar starting price. A bare-bones Crosstrek starts at $22,245, but quickly gets into Golf price overlap. The Alltrack and the 4Motion Golf Sportwagen are superior daily drivers to the Subaru, whether you're doing an emergency lane change or just trying to merge onto the interstate. Meanwhile, the Crosstrek doesn't have the refinement of the VW. Can we fault Subaru though? It's set a sales record every year in a row since 2010 and is looking at about triple the sales volume of VW's Golf for 2016. So we'll stick to telling you what we think of the Alltrack and let the dealers fight for your dollars. First thing's first. Yes, you can have the Golf Sportwagen and even the Alltrack with a manual six-speed gearbox. The seven-speed DSG automatic is very good, but it's worth noting that any manual gearbox is a rarity these days, especially when we're not talking about a two-seat sports car. You will have to wait until early 2017 for that option, but it also saves you $1,100 off both models. Second, the Alltrack and 4Motion Sportwagens get identical engines. Whether manual or DSG, VW's EA888 turbocharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder is under the hood.

Volkswagen rules out Eos successor

When Volkswagen introduced the Eos back in 2006, hard-top convertibles were all the rage – in North America, in Europe and around the world. But the trend, billed at the time as the best of both worlds, has long since subsided, leading to VW axing the Eos several months ago. And don't count on it getting a successor at some point down the line, either. At the Detroit Auto Show earlier this week, VW R&D chief Heinz-Jakob Neusser told Autocar that the Eos is down for the count. In fact it is "maybe the first model we take out of the market" in a reversal of the momentum that has seen the German automaker expand its lineup incrementally over the past several years – although the Chrysler-built Routan minivan was also canceled around the same time. The place the Eos occupied in VW's North American lineup is largely being taken by the more charismatic Beetle Convertible, and in Europe and other markets by the Golf Cabriolet that's still based on the previous-generation hatchback. The Eos, however, isn't the only hard-top convertible withdrawn from the market in recent years. Tin-top cabrios like the Lexus IS and SC, Cadillac XLR, Chrysler 200, Pontiac G6 and Volvo C70 have all gone the way of the dodo – as have Euro-market coupe-convertibles versions of models like the Ford Focus, Opel Astra, and Peugeot 207. The arrival of the Buick Cascada just goes to show that soft-roofed convertibles have won out, particularly as far as four-seat cabrios are concerned. The one notable exception where folding hard-tops are still gaining traction is among mid-engined exotic supercars like the Ferrari 458 and McLaren 650S, both of which opted for solid folding roofs instead of fabric ones. We've yet to see, however, which approach Lamborghini will take with the Huracan Spyder or Audi will with the next-generation R8, the predecessors of both of which featured fabric roofs.